


Where They May

by stillscape



Series: ranch-flavored off-brand Doritos [1]
Category: Archie Comics & Related Fandoms, Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, Gen, Pre-Series, or canon compliant enough
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-04
Updated: 2017-08-04
Packaged: 2018-12-11 04:52:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,532
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11707203
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stillscape/pseuds/stillscape
Summary: Raptorlily prompted: "Betty helps Jughead deal with Ethel's crush on him. Pre-relationship preferably, because I'm a sucker for it, but entirely up to you!"My advance apologies to Ethel Muggs, who is a canonically lovely person.





	Where They May

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Raptorlily](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Raptorlily/gifts).



“You talk to him,” said Archie, sounding rather helpless. “I’ll go… I’ll go get sodas. Or snacks. That would make you feel better, right, Jughead?”

 

Jughead looked up from where he sat on the floor of Archie’s room, hugging his knees to his chest. Betty’s lips were pressed together and her eyes crinkled in a way that made it perfectly evident she was trying very hard not to laugh.

 

“If you think ranch-flavored off-brand Doritos are going to solve this problem, Arch…”

 

“I’ll make nachos. I’ll put a ton of cheese on them and everything. Sour cream. Refried beans! Jalapenos, even, if we have them.” With that, Archie bolted from the bedroom, slamming the door behind him.

 

“You don’t like jalapenos, Betty,” Jughead said. “You should go tell him.” And leave him alone to brood.

 

Betty shook her head a little. “It’s okay. I don’t want any nachos.” She fidgeted with the waistband of her jeans as she said it, not seeming to realize she was doing so. Jughead inwardly cursed Cheryl Blossom, Alice Cooper, and any and all other people who might be obliquely responsible for Betty avoiding nachos, which he knew perfectly well she did not usually turn down.

 

She plopped down on Archie’s bed, taking a big breath that was either her steeling herself for what was to come, or her trying to absorb Archie’s scent. Possibly both.

 

“So tell me about your day,” she said.  

 

He glared at her from under the unruly lock of hair that always escaped his beanie. “Please don’t you start too.”

 

“You know this is all perfectly normal, right?”

 

“No,” he said, “it isn’t.”

 

(Archie had said the same thing. But then, it _was_ normal for girls to throw themselves at Archie. Never, in his fourteen years and eleven months of living, had a girl even so much as looked at Jughead that way. Of this, he was certain.)

 

 Betty sat up a little straighter, smoothing her sweater. “Juggie, we’re freshmen in high school now. You had to expect that at some point, something like this was going to happen.”

 

“Something like—” he cringed as the memory of what exactly Ethel had said came crashing back—“Ethel Muggs cornering me in the hallway to…”

 

Jughead found he could not continue this sentence, which was going to end with _read bad poetry she wrote about my eyes_.

 

“Juggie, all she said was that she wanted to go to the Sadie Hawkins day dance with you.”

 

“That was _not_ all she said.”

 

Betty leaned a little closer. “It wasn’t?”

 

Realization dawned. “You already talked to Ethel about this,” he said accusingly, and a slight look of guilt crossed Betty’s face.

 

“Ethel talked to me,” she said. “I mean, she came to me for advice beforehand. And then afterwards she just said it hadn’t gone well.”

 

If Jughead had been capable of getting mad at Betty Cooper, he would have been furious. As it was, he was not capable of getting mad at Betty Cooper. He was merely capable of being disgruntled in her general direction.

 

Part of him wanted to ask what she had told Ethel, but a much larger part wanted to sink into a hole in the ground.

 

The problem was solved for him. “All I said was that I was sure you weren’t going to the dance with anyone, so she had nothing to lose by asking.” Betty paused, considering something. “You were nice to her, right?”

 

“Yes,” he groaned. “Maybe. I honestly don’t remember.” He took a deep breath and prepared to do something he had never bothered to swear he wouldn’t do, because the possibility of needing to do it had never occurred to him before: gossip about his own love life. The love life he did not currently, and probably would not ever, have. “What did she tell _you_ happened?”

 

“That she asked you to go to the dance with her, and you stammered for a minute and then ran away.”

 

“I ran away,” he said slowly, “after the second stanza.”

 

Betty’s jaw dropped. She didn’t even bother picking it back up right away. “Oh, no,” she said, and she slid from the bed to sit next to him on the floor. “I definitely didn’t authorize anything resembling poetry.”

 

“That’s exactly what it did,” he muttered. “It _resembled_ poetry.”

 

“About…you?”

 

He nodded.

 

“Oh, Juggie,” she said. Her jaw was back in place now, and a smile was starting to play around the corners of her lips. “Okay. That does make this less of an overreaction. Did anyone overhear her?”

 

“God, I hope not.”

 

“So it’s fine,” she said, reaching over to pat his leg. “Look. If Ethel didn’t tell me there was a poem involved, she’s not going to tell anyone else. The three of us are the only ones who know.”

 

“Four,” he said. “Archie.”

 

“Well, you know Archie won’t tell anyone if you ask him not to.”

 

He did. Archie wasn’t the issue. “I just don’t understand _why_ ,” he muttered, before he could stop the words from coming out.

 

“Why what? Why Ethel thought a poem would be a good idea, or why she’d want to ask you to the dance in the first place?”

 

He cast a helpless glance around the room. “Both, I guess?”

 

“Juggie, she’s had a crush on you since sixth grade.”

 

The entire house went unnaturally silent.

 

He meant to say _what?_ , but it came out as “Why?” again, and Betty looked at him like she thought he was crazy.

 

“Why does anyone get a crush on anyone else?” she asked. “You’re cute and smart and funny, Jug. And you have to know the whole sensitive brooding loner thing really works for a lot of girls.”

 

The way Betty said this, so matter-of-factly, made Jughead’s brain short-circuit completely. He just sat there for a few moments, noting with some disconnect that his butt had fallen asleep, trying and failing to rearrange those ideas so that they made some sense.

 

“That’s what you think this is, Betts?” he said eventually, waving a hand over his entire body. “A sensitive brooding loner… _thing_?”

 

Whatever reactions to this blatant sarcasm he might have anticipated, Betty’s lower lip quivering was not one of them.

 

“I didn’t mean it that way,” she said, softly, her hands curling into fists. “I’m sorry.”

 

For an entire minute, the sensitive brooding loner contemplated the perfect girl next door. He was even considering trying to say something sensitive to her, something sensitive and insightful about high school stereotypes and the impossibility of even trying to live up to perfection, when the door burst open and the golden boy popular jock walked in. He held a tray loaded with an enormous plate of nachos, three sodas, and a jar of pickled jalapenos, which he placed on the floor before sitting down.

 

“I remembered you don’t like jalapenos, Betty,” he announced, sounding rather proud about it. “So I left them on the side.”

 

“You didn’t have to do that,” Betty said, looking somewhat longingly at the plate. “I really wasn’t going to have any.” She accepted the bottle of soda Archie handed her, surreptitiously scanned its nutritional info, and bit her lower lip.

 

Archie’s gaze flickered between Betty and Jughead now. “Are—are things okay? Or better, anyway?”

 

Betty looked at Jughead now, and their eyes met. “I’ll be fine, Arch,” he sighed. “Cooper here says I’m a catch, and I’ll just have to get used to girls throwing themselves at me.”

 

“Really?” Archie asked, faux confusion crossing his brow. He smiled a little, and Jughead glared at him. 

 

“Glad to have your support.”

 

Archie leapt to his feet. “I forgot napkins,” he said, and a second later he was thundering down the stairs.

 

Jughead felt a little wave of relief wash over him, though. They were back on solid ground. Solider ground, anyway. He grabbed the tortilla chip with the most cheese on it, and dipped it in sour cream.

 

For reasons known only to herself, Betty was now a tiny bit pink.

 

“What?” Jughead asked, through a mouthful of tortilla chip.

 

“Nothing. Just…” She looked up at him. “You know I wasn’t kidding, right? You—you shouldn’t be surprised if girls like you.” Her hands were almost, _almost_ , balled into fists again; when they made eye contact this time, Jughead realized she was really, truly, completely sincere, in the way only Betty Cooper could be.

 

 _Is there any possibility that you, Betty Cooper, could ever be ‘girls’?_ was the question that came to mind. But it wasn’t a question he needed her to answer. He already knew the answer was no.

 

He dropped his eyes to the soda Archie had put in front of him, and frowned.

 

“Cooper,” he said, hearing the sigh in his own voice, “will you just eat some damn nachos?”

 

From the corner of his eye, he saw a slim hand reach forward and grab the chip with the next-most cheese.

 

“Sensitive brooding loner bad influence,” she muttered, before shoving the chip in her mouth.

 

Jughead felt a little smile start to cross his face, and hastily took a drink of soda before Betty could notice.

**Author's Note:**

> I apologize for my inability to think of titles that aren't song lyrics or bad puns.


End file.
